Efficiency of nuclear power plants.

[Akira13]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
homer simpson would know all this too, but only when they take the crayon embedded in his cranial cavity

"Well you see, Moe, it all starts when the nucleon meets the proteon..."

 

[tontod]

Originally posted by: Degenerate
So still, even outside the reactor, or even the power plant itself, there are still more radiation than natural ones?

Actually on U.S. submarines, there is less radiation outside the reactor compartment than you would find naturally on the surface of the Earth. Part of the reason is that hundreds of feet down, all that water acts as a moderator. You would get more radiation sun bathing in the beach for example than even being right outside the reactor compartment on a submarine.

 

[Shalmanese]

The thing is, we are still experimenting with Nuclear design and we dont know what works best quite yet. To be locked into a costly modualr system that did not allow certain techniques might be dangerous economically. Plus, I am not sure how modular and standardised modern coal + gas power plants are. Maybe its just too hard to design modularly.

 

[KenGr]

Modular and standardized are two very different things. You can have each and you can have them together. Gas plants (both simple cycle and combined cycle) are fairly standardized with specific turbines available and specific other products like steam generators that can be obtained on the market. Coal plants are not really standard although there are similarities.

For nuclear, there are modular plants (packaged units of a capacity of 100 to 200 Megawatts) which could be built in groups of 1 to ??. There is also modular construction where large sections of the plant would be built in a controlled environment and then moved into place in the actual plant.

What is really needed is a group of standardized designs. There are almost 450 nuclear units operating in the world today. Over the next 50 years these all need to be replaced with two or more new reactors just to maintain the current nuclear share of power generation. There is plenty of room, and good reason for, several different designs.